Introducing Chaos (Theory) into Science and Engineering

Abstract

Introductions in scientific journal articles invite the community to read, accept, and build on new ideas. Often they open with standard moves that bid readers to attend to new findings that fill a serious gap in the literature on an important topic, thus connecting shared communal ideas and new ideas. How do these moves apply to “revolutionary” disciplines that lack a shared literature? Do introductory moves influence scientists' reading strategies? In a two-stage study, we analyzed introductions of four articles on chaos theory and then asked 12 scientists to think aloud while reading them. To investigate effects of disciplinary maturity, we chose two recent and two early articles. The early “revolutionary” articles differed strikingly from the more conventional recent articles in space devoted to old versus new information, use of citations and equations, and the nature of opening appeal. Scientific readers reacted differently to the recent and early articles, commenting more on new information in the recent articles. Across articles, however, they commented more on shared information than on new ideas. These results underscore the importance of connecting new ideas to the literature even when using unusual techniques to introduce radically new ideas.

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